Your experience with tinfoil barbs as dithers

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Naos1984

Naos1984

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Sep 9, 2012
712
17
33
Pasig, Philippines
After contemplating for a few weeks about which dither to buy, I bought 6 tinfoil barbs today. All of them in the 6-7" range. I have an obnoxious datnoid that had been stripping scales from my 2 albino Oscars for a long time. I'm sad but I chose to return the Oscars to an LFS here for them to have a better chance at life and also to help me with my sleep! My research here on MFK told me that these fish are fast and almost indestructible. So tell me, what are your experiences with these fish? Also, are they the cleanup crew some said to be or they are simply poop machines like the rest?

RMQ_2439.jpg

Forgive me for the bad pic, they are 30" deep into the corner of the tank and still kinda afraid of my other monsters. Light is not yet on as per my timer.

RMQ_2439.jpg
 
strollo22 said:
I have 2 and I believe they work well as dithers ime. They definitely eat a lot but I rarely see them eat off the bottom
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Why only 2? Do they get rowdy at that number? I always wanted a smaller number but numerous sites say 5 or 6 should be the minimum.

joe jaskot said:
Tin foil barbs get big, live a long time, clean up leftovers and poop a lot.
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Very nice summary. Mine's now trying to sift through sand in less than an hour after being put in my tank.
 
Naos1984 said:
Why only 2? Do they get rowdy at that number? I always wanted a smaller number but numerous sites say 5 or 6 should be the minimum.



Very nice summary. Mine's now trying to sift through sand in less than an hour after being put in my tank.
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I rescued them from my lfs. They were in a 10 gallon tank and I was trying to help my Datnoid aggression as well. I've never seen them fight. They school with my silver dollars.


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Hey Naos nice pick up! I have 3 tinfoils and they are the perfect dithers. they can take any amount of beatings from larger more robust fish and they grow very quickly. They add a lot of movement and flashes of colour to the tank. I highly recommend them as dithers. the only drawback is that they get into a bit of a frenzy at feeding time and if you have more sedentry fish they can get spooked.

the 3 I have I believe 2 of them are Barbus Schwanfeldi (the larger kind) and one of them is a red tail. Colouration is slightly different. the red tails have less black marking on the fins and they tend to have more subdued colours, but a nice red yellow colour on the pelcic fina. red tails also lack the black bar in the tail.
To be honest the two species look very similar but when you ahve them in the same tank you can see subtle differences.

Yours are schwanfeldi, which means they grow larger than 14" some times.
 
Rafini said:
Hey Naos nice pick up! I have 3 tinfoils and they are the perfect dithers. they can take any amount of beatings from larger more robust fish and they grow very quickly. They add a lot of movement and flashes of colour to the tank. I highly recommend them as dithers. the only drawback is that they get into a bit of a frenzy at feeding time and if you have more sedentry fish they can get spooked.

the 3 I have I believe 2 of them are Barbus Schwanfeldi (the larger kind) and one of them is a red tail. Colouration is slightly different. the red tails have less black marking on the fins and they tend to have more subdued colours, but a nice red yellow colour on the pelcic fina. red tails also lack the black bar in the tail.
To be honest the two species look very similar but when you ahve them in the same tank you can see subtle differences.

Yours are schwanfeldi, which means they grow larger than 14" some times.
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Rafini, the GG didn't work. 2 nights in a row and the datnoid is still beating the Oscars. Also, I have the forbidden RTC. I had an agreement with a LFS here that I can exchange the RTC once it gets past 16". Well, the RTC is eating like hell and it's damaging my wallet already so I gave it to the LFS as well, no exchanges. I read that the tinfoils can also be a cleanup crew other than as dithers so picked them up. Followed the rules to keep at least 6 of them. More than 14"? With the amount of food I am giving, I will not be surprised if they grow even bigger.
 
Yeah they make a good clean up crew they eat any leftovers. and thats sorry to hear that your GG didn't work out. so far I'm having great luck with my mix. even though my plec and gar shouldnt get along they do fine together. they have a little bromance going on.

and as for the tinfoils, I throw in a chunk of cantelope or melon for my GG (his jaws are so powerful) and the barbs go mad for it too. so they will literally eat and eat and eat, but luckily you don't have to keep throwing pellets at them. they are omnivores in the wild and they take pretty much whatever I put in for my GG
 
Good! That means the excess fruits I throw into my GG (which he didn't eat) will not stay there for long with the tinfoil barbs. Oh, and I kept the GG. It's just that the GG failed in teaching the dat its lesson. The barbs are still a little afraid of the cichlas but its wonderful to see them school. Love the way they move in the tank.
 
Yeah they are really cool. my only regret is that I have only 3 of them
1 is a red tail and about 7" and the other two are like yours but 4-5" just big enough to avoid being gar snacks
 
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